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April 04, 2004
The Decembrist
Two of the best posts I've seen on any blogs in some time are back to back right now at the Decembrist, specifically this one. I'd add to his post that a party (and not only in the South) that invests so much in the cult of personality is in big trouble if anything (like a political loss) happens to that personality.
I remember seeing Eric Johnson (R - Savannah) make a speech in the state Senate a year or two ago and say something alone the lines of "The Party of Lincoln, Eisenhower, Reagan and Bush" and thinking you've got to be kidding me. We Democrats have been through a similar period with Clinton (some might argue we're still in it) but I would wager that if Bush loses Republicans are in serious trouble because too many of them traded in anything they previously stood for in exchange for a blind adherence to Bush and to a smaller degree DeLay.
Which brings you to McCain and Hagel and the like. The ingredients are in place for a major shakeup, whether it's them forming their own party or switching to the Democratic party or as the pundits would love -- McCain as Kerry's VP.
Kos frowns at McCain's ratings (compared to Kerry) on various scorecards. What you've got to remember though is that there are literally thousands of votes and most scorecards highlight only 10 or 20 and they always pick contentious ones.
An illustrative lesson is the flag referendum vote last year in the state House. The first vote to remove the '56 flag went down something like 89-87. They reconsidered and the vote was 90-86, then the Speaker voted and the tie was broken. You might think that second vote was the key vote, but it wasn't. In between those two votes they voted on whether or not to reconsider...that vote got 95 yeas. Had the measure not been reconsidered the '56 flag would likely be on it's way back in the party primaries this summer. Though Rep. Curtis Jenkins (D - Forsyth) voted no on both of those flag votes, he did vote to reconsider. Without his vote for reconsideration the second flag vote wouldn't have happened...and wouldn't have passed.
So you can pretty easily see how, were I making a scorecard, I might pick a procedural vote instead of an actual vote on the merits of an issue. Or I might pick some wingnut amendment vote that 3/4 of the House voted against even though they ended up voting unanimously to pass the larger bill. The moral of the story is that those scorecards don't tell anything close to the whole story.
Posted by Chris at April 4, 2004 12:51 PM
Comments
Agreed, so then what would you say is the winning card for Democrats to push this fissure to the breaking point? So that if say all the Repub eggs are in one basket and GA either
1. Regains the State senate and hold the house
or
2. Holds, through some miracle the Dem US Senate seat
or
3. Sends a Dem majority of US Congressmen to Washington.
Democrats, and progressive Democrats at that, suddenly hold the cards for a larger Southern state.
Posted by: Tim at April 5, 2004 11:41 AM
Senator Chuck Hagel is not a Democrat. There is nothing about Hagel that should make you conclude he is anything other than a Republican. But you can dream right?
Posted by: Joe at April 8, 2004 12:53 PM
Tim:
The districts are so gerrymandered now there is no way GA sends a DEM congressional majority to DC. Tough to be a Southern DEM huh? GOP is going to pick up seats in the GA legislature in 2004.
Posted by: Joe at April 8, 2004 12:55 PM
I can live with the GOP picking up a few seats, as long as we elect real Democrats and not the pseudo-Dems we have currently. i personally would like to see Georgia with a Dem majority in the House and a Progressive or least liberal-leaning moderate at the gavel. Calvin Smyre cannot continue to be the rural-Democrats' whipping boy as the hold-all catch for bad legislation.
Posted by: Tim at April 9, 2004 02:25 PM
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